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Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that the path from 'decide to do something' to performing the action is hundreds of ms long. It's also interesting that grabbing the data early in the process and acting on it can perform the action before the conscious 'self' understands fully that the action will take place. It's just another reminder that the 'you' that you consider to be running the show is really just a thin translation layer on top of an ocean of instinct, emotion, and hormones that is the real 'you'.

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I rather prefer the holistic take that we are our whole selves and not just the part that reflects on what we do or the part that reacts to external and internal material stimuli. We know we can change the instincts, emotions, and hormones when they conflict with what we know by reflection to be just and good. To put it another way, we know that we can do things "without thinking" that are either just or unjust and by reflection can achieve some level of mastery over the direction of our impetuses.

I’ve been saying “There is a real you, unfortunately, you’re not it.”

I think the opposite is equally true.

"There is a real you. Unfortunately, it's you."

I watched an interview with Carrie Fisher years ago where she was talking about her struggle with drug abuse. She said something that I thought was quite inciteful, "I am but a spy in the house of myself."

"That's ridiculous", said the hivemind-module of a mobile megafortress powered by a swarm of nanomachines.

Speaking as a guy who meditates, EVERYTHING dissolves when you look at it closely. To reveal another "reality". And then that reality dissolves. And so on.

You can take that position, but there's very little evidence that the translation layer that is accepting what I'm writing right now has any access to the vast expanse of mind underneath. The evidence is growing that our subconscious decides and 'we' as the conscious element of the system rationalizes that decision after the fact. There is a children of time novel about sentient octopuses that have a very pronounced disconnect between the 'crown' making the big picture calls and the 'reach' doing the implementation. When I first read that it was fascinating because it seemed so alien, but maybe that isn't so alien after all

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